I smell the dust of the ranch
and the smoke of the hill
still as I sit here
and listen to congressmen.
I feel the bruise of the bullet,
the slam of it,
into the folded speech.
I see her sometimes
in the corners of mirrors.
I see her dead
and smell the room.
Part of me
is watery and dark
and filled with tinny echoes.
Patrick T. Reardon
7.8.17
Written @ 1980.
